Maintainers Chat - Week of March 26 - April 1

Welcome to the last week of March! Can you believe that it will be April next week? Tank top weather is rapidly approaching!

I started shifting winter and summer clothes yesterday. Since we live in an older house and have tiny closets, this is a BIG production. As I was getting out the summer things and trying some of them on, I realized that I weigh about eight pounds less than I did last summer (the extra pounds were courtesy of my shoulder surgery and forced inactivity). Everything that fit last summer still fits now, but it fits so much better with eight fewer pounds! It's funny because when I first started losing weight, I couldn't tell a difference in my clothes until I lost 30 pounds. Now even five pounds makes a difference.

I'm back from the gym - doing a different workout split this week. I usually work out one muscle group per day, but am trying out a M-W-F upper body, T-Th lower body split. Kinda fun to change it up.

In other news, one of our cats is in heart failure and probably doesn't have long to live. It's very sad because she's not even two years old and is the sweetest, most affectionate cat ever. We have her on meds and are watching her closely ... we're determined not to let her suffer at all. But she lay in the sun and purred yesterday so is still enjoying life. I still tear up every time I think about her though.

Good Morning all!
Oh Meg, I am so sorry about your cat. I am a definite cat lover. You made me get a little weepy.

I finally broke down and bought some maternity clothes yesterday. I had still been limping along in my regular wardrobe, but it was time. I took my oldest dd and we had a nice time, though she did act like it was "What Not To Wear", LOL.

It was a busy weekend and today's busy too. Friday is open though, I just keep repeating that, over and over, LOL

Have a nice week everyone.

__________________He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
Lisa

We're back home from our Florida vacation. I was so tired last night, I fell asleep during our favorite show ~ Battlestar Galatica. Fortunately, it was Tivoed so I'll be able to watch it today. DH said it was a very good cliffhanger till next year.

This morning, I calculated everything I ate while away and still came in at 1290 for a daily calorie average. That should keep the scale at goal weight when I do the weekly weigh in on Wednesday.

Our cat Ashley was very happy to see us. She's very social and wants to be around us all the time. She was so happy, she started purring at 5:10 this morning. We tried to get her to go back to sleep, but she would not. She probably slept most of the time we were away. (Yes, we had our neighbor check on her, so we didn't abandon her completely!) She'll be 2 in June and we'll have her for a year then. Like our last cat that lived until AT LEAST 21 years, she's a stray.

It was fun to wear my summer clothes on vaca. Can't wait to get to wear them some more in two months. DH has a set of interviews today so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll get an offer. I'd really like to be able to buy some short sleeve shirts that fit. Most everything I have is hanging on me too big. Plus, I need some new summer dresses. I have a pile of T-shirt dresses that I might be able to take in down the sides using my new sewing machine. I believe it has a foot and stitch that will work on jersey material.

We went to a swim suit store in Sarasota and they didn't have a single suit in my size that I would consider wearing. I'd like to get one that looks like the one I'm wearing in the picture below. That one's a size 12 and falls off me when I swim in the waves at the Jersey shore. I did wear it to walk on the beach at Siesta Key this past week. It's still good for sun bathing ~ something I don't do!

Happy Belated Birthday Lily Hope you got the jeans and shirts you wanted, and if not, you'll have fun shopping.

Meg, I sure noticed that 5 lbs. in either direction makes a big difference now too. I'm so happy that all my clothes from last summer fit. I need to go through my stuff and pack away the winter clothes too.

My DH got me some beautiful picture frames for my b-day. I filled them all up and will be hanging them today. He also got me some new gardening tools and some new books to read. I plan to get working on planting green beans and new potatoes today. It's sprinkling right now and I hope the sun shines this afternoon.

Meg, I'm sorry your kitty is so sick. We have one cat that loves me to death. I'm more of a dog person, but I'm pretty fond of this cat.

My 21 yr. old son has now been dating a 25 yr. old woman for 6 weeks. She has a 5 yr. old little boy. We'll have to wait and see how this goes. He is great with little kids but I never thought he'd want to date someone yet that had kids. He had a "date" Saturday and I asked him what they did. He said "grilled burgers outside, played frisbee with her and the boy and watched movies". He then said "it was a grea , relaxing evening".

Lisa, WTG on buying you some maternity clothes. LOL, my DD would have thought it was What NOT to Wear too.

Carolyn, thanks. I'm going to shop for my own jeans and shirts. DH never gets the right size anyway. He goes by how they look on the rack, LOL. I need to shop for a swimsuit anyway, mine from last summer is a 12 and would fall off.

Today, I have to buy new tires for my vehicle. That won't be cheap, that is for sure. We are also boat shopping.

Carolyn~DH is a Battlestar Gallactica fan, too. All I can say is frack. What's up with that? I mean, really, we know what they're really saying, how can they get away with frack? Ok, rant over!!!

Meg~so sorry to hear about your cat. My inlaws had a brush with their cat's possible demise due to heart problems. They took him in to have his teeth cleaned and he got too much sedation. They had to have him on heart meds for a year, but he's doing okay now.

Lily, your vacation sounds like it was pretty exhausting! At least you made it home in one piece. Happy belated birthday!

Carolyn, sounds like your vacation was exhausting too!

Lisa, sometimes I'm jealous of pregnant women because they have so many adorable clothes to wear! There is a local store that carries all sorts of cute pregnancy T-shirts with cute little sayings (of course I can't remember any of them right now though).

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous. We had a record high yesterday (80 or 81, I forget). My fiance and I had a picnic in the park and took a short walk around, which was really nice. We opened up all our windows and stuck the coats back in the closet where they belong! Hopefully it will last a while -- it's supposed to be in the 70's all week at least.

Last week I actually made it to the gym ALL FIVE DAYS. I haven't gone five days in a week in over a year. PLUS I jogged some (slowly, 4mph) and my knees didn't complain much. Woohoo!

House hunting this weekend left us kind of stressed out. We've seen a few nice places but nothing is perfect. I know we won't find a perfect house but it is still disappointing. Some of the houses need cosmetic repairs (carpeting, paint, etc), some need more significant work (siding, conversion to gas furnace), and some don't need repairs but are lacking in space, or are constructed out of not great materials. We'd love to find an all-brick house but the ones in our price range all have other major issues -- one we found looked cute but the crawlspace was totally flooded from the rain, and the yard was a big mud puddle. Plus it was on well and septic instead of municipal water and sewer.

We saw one hilarious house -- it was built in 1978, and not a single update had been made since then except maybe some paint. The kitchen had the oldest microwave I have ever seen -- it wasn't even digital! I had no idea how to even use a microwave and oven that old. All the decor (light fixtures, hardware, cabinets) was totally outdated. A great opportunity for someone who is looking for a fixer-upper, but that's not us!

Anyway next weekend we're going to go revisit our favorites with Ben's parents and see what they think. After that we might make a decision or we might broaden our search area.

In other news I'm considering keeping Passover this year for the first time, in, like, ever. (I like to say "I'm not really Jewish, I'm Jew-ish," meaning we are really very unobservant.) I think it might be a good shake-up for my diet since I rely so much on breads and grains. Also it would be good for my fiance to go a week without consuming a whole loaf of bread (last week's loaf I only had two slices of). OTOH I am really not used to eating that way and I don't really know what to cook. I do have three Jewish cookbooks so I know I have Passover-approved recipes but they tend to contain lots of fat. And in a religious sense it would somewhat make up for us forgetting Yom Kippur last year (oops). Are there any other Jewish maintainers out there? I guess we can just eat lots of salad. I still haven't talked my fiance into it.

I just spent another 3 hrs. in my garden, weeding and making the rows. I'll get at least potatoes planted today. Then, I walked outdoors for 2 miles. It is a beautiful 76 degree day here. I plan to mow my yard this evening. Seems like after only 1 week of vacation that I have tons of projects needing done.

Jessica, I am glad that I survived that Vacation. I came home more tired than when I left. LOL. Sorry to hear the house-hunting is so stressful. My DH (being a trooper) they told us what county we had to live in. There weren't many houses for sale, so we had to pick one pretty darn quickly. Before we moved, I was commuting 3 hrs. a day to work and working 12 hr. night shifts, so I wasn't too picky. But, I do love our home and plan to stay here til DH is retired.

Hi all! I am new to the maintainer's forum, although I've been maintaining for over a year.

I've slipped up the last couple of weeks, but I'm putting myself on a more low-fat, higher protein regimen so I can help eliminate the excess I have on my tummy and build muscle I want to be a little more buff and toned than I am right now.

School's really busy right now, I'm a double major in elementary and early childhood education. There are lots of hours at practicum to be done, case studies, lesson plans, oh my gosh I don't even want to think about it! Even though it is stressful, I love what I do!

I also work 3 jobs outside of school, I work at a daycare, a library, and a sunglasses store. All in all, I put in about 35 hours a week

Welcome home, all you rested vacationers!
Meg Hope the Albequerque Kitty is comfortable. You had me near tears, too. We had a little deaf white cat with blue eyes years ago who just plain dropped dead of a heart attack at about age 2. I didn't know it, but there is a common cluster of congenital defects with white cats, one blue eye, one green, deaf, and heart defects. She wasone of the sweetest cats we've ever owned also. In retropsect, she also didn't live long enough to get old and snarky.

Paperclippy- I'm a non-observant Jew. Until I totally changed my way of eating, I used to describe myself as a "culinary Jew". My father and step-mother are very observant and keep a Kosher household. When I'm there at Passover, there seems to be a lot of matzoh (not very low cal), tuna fish, salads, applesauce, all sorts of not very appetizing cakes made from boxed parve mixes, gefilte fish (which I actually love), eggs...pretty much everything except bread. They also have seperate Passover china- both milk and meat. Just how far do you want to take this?

I'm kind of dreading the nice warm weather which should hit here tomorrow. LOL, my clothes would fit me, but they all fell apart! I'm probably down about 5 pounds from where I was at this time last year (that was a momentary blip up), but I bought a lot of shorts and T's from Target which lasted hardly through the summer before falling apart. I think I have maybe two pairs of shorts and a few really old decent looking t-shirts for training. And no shopping in my immediate future

Welcome to Maintainers, lateralus!!!!! You sound incredibly busy

Mel

__________________
Falling down is not failure....Failure is staying down.Save the Earth, it's the only planet with chocolate and wine.

It isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain.

Meg, I'm so sorry about your cat. Pets make such a difference in our lives.

Carolyn, that was such an awesome BG episode--I'm a huge fan and it is one of only 2 TV shows I watch (outside of Dora the Explorer, anyway). You must have been really tired from your vacation!

Jessica, nice going on your 5 days. House hunting sounds hilarious, but having been there a couple times, I know how stressful it is. I hope your Passover experience goes well.

Welcome back Lily, hello Allison & Mel, nice to see the forum bustling. Welcome lateralus! Who's still hiding? Karynlee--keep posting. Robin--it was good to see so much of you last week. Hmmm, who else am I missing, Megan, Pat, Beth, Tara, Lisa, SusanB...and my brain has shut down!

I think I'm about to lick this cold. No sudaphed for me today, I'm not absolutely exhausted, and eating is almost back to non-sick standards. I just seem to have no willpower when I'm feeling badly, and I've decided that is OK. I'm feeling OK much more than I'm sick and it'll balance out. Scale is behaving even if I haven't so that is good. DD had her 18 month checkup today and did just fine. No more shots until she is 4!!

Anne

__________________
Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.

I am sure sore this morning after the gardening, the walking and then the mowing yesterday.(We also moved a huge woodpile yesterday and restacked it). My garden is starting to look like a garden now instead of a big mess of dirt. My yard looks beautiful. (I push mowed the inside fenced back yard and used the riding mower on the front.) Then I came inside and cooked dinner and did dishes and showered. I fell asleep sitting up watching Deal or No Deal at 8PM.

DH got my vehicle to the shop and had new tires put on it for me yesterday evening. I'm happy for this as it was not even drivable. This was my first flat since buying it and I learned my spare was 16" and all the other tires were 17" and this kept the spare spinning and the all wheel drive kept kicking in.

I'm back outside today to do some more planting after taking a couple of ibuprofen for my sore back, neck and shoulders. My SD is here this week while my MIL is on vacation in Hawaii. She has actually been outside helping me with the gardening.

My eating hasn't been too great. I did have another piece of my b-day cake yesterday but figured I had worked off lots of calories. I'm back to using Fitday today and plan is to stay on program from this point forward. The cake is now gone and I'm glad for this. I weighed just now and am back up to 145 so time to get serious again.

I don't know why, but I'm the type that when I start a project, I don't stop until it's done. I work til I about drop. I just heard the rain start so it may be this afternoon before I can get outside.

Mel, my clothes didn't fall apart but I do notice that I don't really have anything Old to wear to work outside in. I got rid of my BIG clothes. I have been using DH's t-shirts to work in and they are very baggy on me. I'm using my size 7 jeans to work in and they fall down if I don't wear a belt.

I was pleased to see the scale move finally this morning. It is truely amazing how sticking to plan actually works.

We put a bamboo floor in our kitchen this w/e. It was 18-20 hrs of backbreaking labor.....Now it looks like we have to pull it all out. The floor is not level by a long shot - due to an addition to the house.
The thought of doing all that work again plus ripping it out - makes me nauseous!

I haven't had a lot of motivation and I really wanted to get these last few pounds off, but they just aren't budging. I know what I need to do, but just can't seem to find the uuumph to get myself to do it.

And then someone said something that has really stuck in my head:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Su-Bee

I think it's hard to stay motivated at this point because, honestly, these are vanity pounds. I'm in a healthy weight range for my height, I eat decently and am active and fairly muscular, and it isn't going to make me healthier to be 10 pounds slimmer. I'm at a point where, in terms of cost-benefit analysis, and in terms of what I feel to be my overall quality of life, it is worth more to me to splurge occasionally with my eating, or to sleep in occasionally instead of going to the gym, than it is to micromanage my diet and exercise to release a couple more pounds.

But the vanity does kick in, and that is what keeps me coming back to the board, and doing my little up-and-down thing with the weight!

So there I am. These are indeed vanity pounds for me. I'm at about 21.5 BMI (with normal being 18.5-24.9). Even if I get to my goal of 133, I'm still in the normal range at 20.2. My clothes fit fine (size 6), I get compliments, I just wish......wish I could meet my goal.

So I looked over my weight chart this morning. I got to 140 in October, was down to 136 in November, and bounced up to 143 in January. I've been between 140-142 all of February and March. So I'm not really losing, more like I'm maintaining. I guess I'm doing okay because I'm not gaining......I just wish......wish I could meet my goal.

So that's where I am gals. Stuck. On a plateau. Not losing what I'd like to lose and obviously it has put me in sort of a funk. I don't know where to continue--do I keep trying? Do I throw in the towel and simply maintain? Do I take a break and try again in a few months?